EVOO

 

Today, September 30, is Extra Virgin Olive Oil Day.  Does that make you want to roam through an olive grove just like the one in this picture?

Extra virgin olive oil, or EVOO, is the highest quality of all olive oils.  Through grinding and pressing, oil is extracted from the olives without the presence of heat or chemical extraction methods.  It is loaded with antioxidants and lots of monounsaturated fat which is one of the healthy fats to have in our diets.

Note:  Monounsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature and solid when chilled.  Saturated fats and trans fats are solid at room temperature.

The process of certifying EVOO to be the level of quality it is supposed be is time-consuming and rigorous.  This is partly why EVOO is more expensive than other olive oils.  But the expense is worth it if you love the pure flavor and the high quality of this oil.

I keep a bottle in my kitchen at all times.

So celebrate the day today by making some pasta with a little EVOO and some grated parmesan, or perhaps a nice loaf of bread.  Just break off a chunk, dip it in the oil, and enjoy.

Oven heat in winter

Merry Monday, everyone.  We are a week into autumn.  The sun is veering further and further south.  The winds of fall are already blustery at times.  Leaves are turning colors and falling.  Tall grasses are fully seeded and waving in the breezes.

I did a lot of baking this past weekend.  And I'm making ice creams early this week before making the foods on order for this upcoming weekend.  And of course my previously-mentioned cinnamon roll single elimination bake-off is coming up as well.  I have plenty of things on my to-do list to keep myself busy in the kitchen.

Yesterday as I pulled a batch of cookies from the oven, the hot air spilled outward and upward when I opened the oven door, and that made me think ahead to the upcoming winter cold.  One of my favorite things in the winter is to bask in that heat.  I love to feel it rising to my face when I pull anything from the oven.  In the chill of winter, even if the house is warm, there is something nice about that oven heat.

In the summer, it's the complete opposite, of course, but for the winter it's one more appealing aspect of working in the kitchen.

It would be nice to have a wood-burning stove.  Then that radiant heat would be there all the time in the winter.  Since I don't foresee getting one of those in the near future, I'll be very appreciate of that rising heat from the oven every time I open it to pull out a loaf bread or tray of cookies all winter long.

Autumn and food

Today is the first day of autumn.  The temp here in Kansas City showed it, too:  49 degrees on my thermometer.  

Time to start thinking more about cold-weather foods.  Well, maybe not entirely.  I just did my fall chocolate order and picked up a large bag of the specific chocolate I like to use for my mint chocolate chip ice cream.  Soon you will see that ice cream land on the menu.  I love doing my big fall order of chocolate.  It is part of my end-of-summer ritual:  open up the website, order the standard items I like to keep on hand, check out anything new they are offering, and then decide what else I want to try or what else I want to indulge in.

This week in addition to the menu offerings, I'm going to be making a couple different BLT pasta salads.  I've made these before, and I'm trying to decide if I want to place one of them on the menu.  I'm also going to be dabbling in a test of another new ice cream.  I will bake some rolls.  And I will hopefully start my single-elimination cinnamon roll tournament.  I have multiple cinnamon roll recipes that I like to use.  I'm going to be making them in pairs and after each pair, one will go on to the next round.  By the time I get to the end I will have chosen one to be on the menu.

I'm also going to be mailing a package of cookies up to Zak (and Heidi, but she won't eat them since she's vegan and none of these cookies are vegan).  This is partially a "thank you!" for them since Heidi and Zak are the ones who maintain and enhance the brucebakeryandbistro.com website.  And it's a chance to see how the cookies will come out after being in transit a couple days.  I will have to work on finding a couple good vegan things to send up so that Heidi can eat them too.

Autumn is such a great time to think about all our favorite foods for the upcoming holiday season.  I love the change of seasons.  I love the holidays.  I love the food.  What a great way to head into the end of the year.

Enjoy the new cool weather.  And thank you for reading this blog and trying my food.  I truly enjoy sharing both my words and my foods with everyone.

Cookie dip

The end of summer is almost officially here.  In just a few more days, autumn will begin.  The leaves are already falling from some of the trees.  The evening breezes feel different.  The slanting sunlight of the late afternoon looks markedly different than it did just a handful of days ago.  The turn of the season is here.

As the end of the year approaches, I think about comfort foods a lot.  I've just added a new item to the menu, and this one definitely feels like a comfort food to me.

This is a sweet and creamy cookie dip.  I like to dip spiced molasses cookies in it, and chocolate chip cookies, and use it to make sugar cookie sandwiches.  I've even dipped strawberries in it.   I'm sure there are many foods with which this will pair well.

It is mildly sweet with a pleasant flavor that always leaves me smiling.  And it's creamy texture is what I think makes it a comfort food.

It's on the menu for next weekend.  I hope you'll give it a try. 

Have a great weekend everyone.  And be on the lookout for more additions to the menu.

Lasagna

 

Good morning, everyone.

Summer is almost over.  I can feel it in the air when I put out birdseed each morning.  Leaves are starting to fall from a few of the trees.  The winds are feeling different.  And even a hot afternoon doesn't feel quite as hot.

As we head into cooler weather soon, it's the perfect time to think about hot foods.   With that in mind, it's a great time to announce another new food added to the menu.

Lasagna is now available.  I love pasta dishes and especially lasagna.  This is made with a combination of ground chuck and mild Italian sausage.  This mix of meats is just wonderful, I think.  I'm making these in individual servings.  They come in disposable baking cups, already cooked and then chilled.  (Although if you want to try to arrange a pickup time that coincides with when I pull them out of the oven, you can do that.)  Once you get them home, just pop them in your fridge until you're ready to eat them.  Then remove the plastic lid, put them on a cookie sheet and heat them in a pre-heated 350 oven for 20-25 minutes.  I also like to lay a loose piece of foil over it to make sure the cheese on top doesn't brown.  I usually put a light coating of oil on the foil or tent it so it doesn't stick to the cheese.  Do not try to heat them in the microwave in the baking cup in which it comes because it's metal.  

The sauce is wonderfully flavored with many herbs and seasonings.  There are three different cheeses.  Oh, I love eating this.  And I love how convenient it is that I can make them ahead in individual serving sizes and then just heat them up.

So order some lasagna and let me know how you like it!  It's on an upcoming weekly menu as I write this.

Cheese spread

A new item has appeared on the menu:  cheddar cream cheese spread with horseradish and paprika.

I love dips and spreads.  Anything creamy and flavorful that can be eaten with a cracker or a raw vegetable or a hunk of bread .... these things are good in my opinion.  

I've always loved cheese.  Who hasn't?  I mean, does anyone not like cheese?  If you're out there, please stand up and be recognized.  I suppose those who are lactose intolerant might not like cheese.  However, I think they really do like cheese, but they just can't have it without feeling too icky.

This spread, or dip, depending on how you want to use it, is great with so many things.  When I first began working on this item, I wanted some strong contrasting flavors and textures.  Horseradish ended up in this, and I've never really worked much with horseradish before.  But I like it in this and perhaps I'll find more uses for it in the future.

Paprika is always something I love to use.  After all, deviled eggs just aren't quite the same without a dusting to give them color and flavor.

The sharp cheddar cheese in this is shredded and then mixed into the cream cheese.  This means that the main ingredients by volume give a texture combination that I find very pleasing as the shredded cheese is not pureed or mashed into a paste.  The bits of cheese are abundantly evident in every spoonful.

A few other ingredients are tossed in and they shall remain secret for now.  

I hope you'll give it a try.  It will be appearing on a weekly menu offering very soon.

Have a great late summer day!

Tolkien and food

On today's date, September 2, in 1973, J. R. R. Tolkien passed away.   Tolkien, as almost everyone knows, wrote The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, and some marvelous short stories, poems and essays.  If you've read the three works I've mentioned but want more, try Leaf by Niggle, Smith of Wootton Major, and Farmer Giles of Ham, all among my favorite short stories from any author.  There are still others I haven't mentioned, too.  Tolkien created an entire world in his stories and left behind many unpublished notes and writings that give more details and history about Middle-Earth which is where The Lord of the Rings is set.  Thankfully those notes and writings have made their way out to the world via a series of volumes organized and published largely due to the efforts of his son Christopher. 

Why do I mention the anniversary of his passing on this food blog?  Well, I remember so vividly the first time I read his books how he wrote about how all hobbits loved food, and celebrations, and had more than the typical three meals per day that seems so normal now.  There was talk of seed cakes, second breakfasts, and the appreciation of food in general as one of the luxuries of life to be most enjoyed.  That stuck with me from the time I was 13 years of age which is when I first read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.   

I love the concept of enjoying food.  Sure, we all talk about how we love certain foods.  But this world moves at such a fast pace that I think many times people are too consumed with the idea of consuming food quickly and without thought.  (How's that for interesting phrasing?)  We all have to eat.  We might as well enjoy it, truly savor it, honestly revel in our favorite foods.  I don't mean we should eat in such a way that we become less healthy.  I simply mean that we should endeavor to make food more than just a simple function of life.  It should be a joyous part of life.

The foods which I put on my menu are always my favorites.  I don't put anything out there that isn't something I personally enjoy immensely.  So when I get to share these foods with all of you, it is a personal thing for me, something I am happy to do.  And it makes my enjoyment of my favorites more complete when I get to serve them to people who will enjoy them, too.